Chapter 38
The sand in the hourglass was almost spilt as the dusk began to seep in.
On the breeze, they overheard the distant wail of irate Gulls hail from across the bay and the chime of prayer bells. Jan Jiri they peeled as they rang in distress for troubles that would soon appear.
The streets lay cold, desolate, as the municipal lighting illuminated the walkways and the promenade in hues of dim gold. With the dying of the light, A few gallant devotees remained. As candles burned brightly and incense hung subtly beneath the eaves above. They sat within the flicker of light and shadow in rumination. There were wiser places to linger, to practice their ahimsa. Even so, Swords were drawn, lances made sharp and ready as four unlikely musketeers stood together in solidarity, a small dainty one like the mongoose amongst a pride of lionesses that hinted at being more than proficient in the art of warcraft.
They sauntered into the temple courtyard and readied themselves.
Quietness diffused over them. Quilting them in a forgiving wave as they picked up the barely audible chatter coming from Jn Joro who looked to be excited by the mere prospect of showing off her mettle to this generation of minstrels.
The twilight was more pernicious now as it was harder to locate the creatures that stood statuesque at the far end of the courtyard steps. The collective, silhouettes of shae soldiers assembled densely together akin to an odious ebony swarm. The only discernible element was the white masks they bore and the blue circles of their eyes that sat narrow and sapphirelike, pinpricks nestled fierce-ly against a black sclera. They stood weapons aloft as their pikes were arranged symmetrically to each other like a furious craven hedgehog. Jn Joro ambled gently forward cautiously to meet the enmity “I am the 13th in-carnation of the Maitre d’ of this temple,” she announced, “I’ve come to parley with you,”.
A dark gangly shadow smote his likeness upon the darkening floor as he approached and brought himself for-ward. He had an ashen face and long hoglike ears and one eye that stood out vulture-like and glassy. It looked extra eerie as it huddled against its twin that in stark contrast was deep luminous blue. He pushed closer and looked at Jn Joro with the hatred of something less than significant.

“I’ve come to accept your terms of surrender,” he grumbled. Oh, the arrogance thought Joro as she laughed haughtily. He was indeed trying to win the psychological battle already. Joro stared back unphased by his threats and jibes narrowing her eyes she replied: “there is no deficiency in my mind, and my type do not sit well being threatened, and you should know we are not afraid of death.”
“consider then, the fate of your loved ones,” he warned in a nearly affectionate tone “… they will be humiliated and made slaves,”. Jn Joro screwed up her face it in a virtually perfect pastiche of how one should emote. In revulsion, she continued “for your insubordination, you are not leaving this place with the juice in your veins… I promise you,” and spiders always kept their promises she mused to herself, as she shuddered virtually with delight at the thought.
“but there’s only 4 of you,” he said as if he were conversing with an insane woman, perhaps that was the fatal weakness, the fly in the ointment. She wasn’t a wench at all, “precisely my point…. you should have brought more soldiers,” she responded bluntly and quick with a cold stare that was more than a mere scare tactic.
“Death will visit you this hour,” he asserted as he served up his warnings with a generous dose of histrionics “then, perhaps… I will share with him a welcoming cup” she answered without gesticulating what the cup would hold.
“Then, you will die this day….. I promise you that” he said enraged “there will be considerable suffering soon to follow” shrieked the man as Joro, who was engaged in a pissing contest with the shae commander did not concern herself too much with his abrasive statements
“….. their blood will be on your hands,”
there was a silence as Joro processed the sentiment.
“You can be sure of it!” she remarked… as he shuffled away back to his troupe and left her unphased with a wry smile and a twinkle in her cold black eyes. Returning to her comrades, she passed them a superficial glance, nodded as they readied themselves and stood together. A small isle in front of a tsunami that would soon come crashing upon them.

Initially, their adversaries began to stamp and thunder, as if they were unleashing the primordial demons that slept, silent in hibernation within them. Then they started to clap. Clattering whatever array of weaponry they were holding until the commotion was ear-splitting and echoed, shaking the very ground. They even noticed it within their dentures.
They held their breath as they awaited their rivals first attack.
Was this the end?
‘Twas almost as if they weren’t alone. As if other eyes were observing events in this hallowed crucible, if only they could hold their nerve. A bugle sounded from far away, then excitement and panic ensued as they began advancing steadily.
In the next breath, Grozette raised her hand to the heavens, as she uttered words that summoned a storm cloud that was fluttering and alive. A shadow of Mertensii bats blacked out the skyline and plunged them all into darkness. Out of nowhere, they cut through them like a vorpal scalpel moving this way and that. A swarm of wrath they could barely see-through.
The few that materialised from the surge staggered to their Doom. As they found themselves cut down swiftly by the needle of Joro, or split open by strands of razor-sharp webbing or impaled by Tallulah’s lance.
The littlest ghost stood more adornment than an object of use as she wondered what her part in this endeavour truly was?
It was not long before puddles of blood pooled up on the courtyard floor as the dead gave up their cohesion and discorporated. It seemed all too easy, but they knew, it was only the start. It would get grimmer and messier, from here on in. The fragrance of the air stank like an abattoir with a soupcon of wysteria from a coppice of adjacent trees that rustled in the thick night air. Elkie remembered what her father used to say, Li Elkie – if you grow up to be, a musician you’ll rule the stage, if you’re a nun you’ll run the temple. How did she come to feel so inconsequential, she wondered?
Elsewhere in the temple, the lifeless body lay out-stretched. It was the Brownies mortal remains. A red open curtain was swathed around it as she lay a spectacle, still and stone dead, finally at peace. Beyond the calamity unfolding outside, as once again, she was revisited by a speck of light that was visible as it whirled around her presence like a firefly. It perched upon her hands that folded across her heart line and in the next instance, flew up into her nostril as a flush of bright light illuminated through her skin in hues of shimmering orange fire and then was quelled.
At first, it showed up like a vein that somehow stood out a little brighter than the rest of her complexion. Her pelt that had lost the warming glow of noble blood that had surged around her arteries. Then almost invisibly it began. A white pinprick of radiance that began to proliferate, sprawling vines tattooing her skin with light. As she started to shudder. Slowly and too subtly to be perceptible. Sleeves of beautiful soft strokes started to gleam. As if someone had daubed upon her skin with invisible ink, and now under the moonlight in just the right colour spectrum, it was visible.
Exquisite. Old designs in a language that even time may have forgotten.

Outside they stood on guard. Grozette lazily rested Ivry across the blades of her shoulders as Elkie looked at them and asked
:
“Now what!”
It was dimmer now as the ground between the void looked as black as pitch. They could still make out the spilt blood on the floor. It almost looked to be moving toward them. Intruding like the shallows of a low tide, it wore their reflections distortedly and mockingly, and Elkie felt sadder than usual looking at it.
“So much blood!” remarked Grozette.
“Too much, my sister, I don’t like it!” answered Tal as she searched about them for signs of danger. There was just enough sound to hear the silence and just enough light to notice how dark it really was.
“where is he?” thought Grozette aloud. Joro looked down towards Elkie as she ruffled her winette hair “be ready little one!” she looked up and nodded. For sure he, like the boogeyman would be here when they least expected it, she looked once more into the pool of blood it was curious that there was so much of it. Elkie observed how black it looked in the night as she gazed deep into it and watched the moons and the uncountable amount of stars in the heavens. As without realising it, she began to tremble with dis~ease. It came over her gradually in the tips of her fingers a macabreness and a sense of Deja vu that left her feeling cold. As cold as she felt when she re-called earlier gazing into the grand mirror in the Knightmares chamber.
From the periphery of her eye, she thought she saw a muddle of blackness brooding as it seemed to wander toward Grozette.
It was him, Elkie rushed over to Grozette as she nudged her as hard as she could and phased her for a moment of intangibility.
The Knightmare he was there resembling a demon in armour, more of an assemblage of plate and scales, even his face was lost, neath a mask of chain that veiled it away behind a curtain. His blade was unsheathed and thirsty. It was said to be so sharp, that if a hair were to fall across its edge, it would part it. Now it was about to fall upon Grozette as if it desired to cut her asunder.
“NO!” screamed Tallulah as she dove fast thought the air like an inky silk ribbon spiralling through the wind quickly and sharply to pre-empt his strike.
“You!” a voice said emanating from the black armour. It sounded agitated as the sound of Tallulah’s spear parried with remarkable precision, as she whirled it around effortlessly like a baton, making use of both ends. She started the battle of her life. As Joro joined the fray and Grozette regathered her senses from the safety of the sidelines. Grozette called Li Elkie close as she caught her breath, shakily she said,
“can you phase me through Joro and Lullah?”
Elkie looked at her bleakly “I think so!” she sniffled unconvincingly.
“Then come with me!” she said with fortitude. The wizardess went first followed closely by the tiny proportions of the littlest ghost as she clung onto her blue and grey raiment and followed as closely as her tail. As the Witch pressed through Joro like a spectre and then through Tal. To come face to face with the abomination that was the Knightmare. She widened her eyes and stabbed at him. as the luminescence of Ivry pierced his armour. She spurred forward to send it deeper still, using all the strength she could muster as she heard a gush of breath rush out of him. Squealing in havoc, a tormented pig, he collapsed into a heap upon the floor. The husky voice of Lullah said “stand firm. It’s not over,” as they found themselves recede into a formation with each other at one another’s back as Grozette sallied forth to retrieve Ivry from the Knightmares corpse. It was wedged tight and pull as she might she could not remove it.
She braced it against her boot and attempted to pull it away one final time, as she peered across and saw a fiery red eye peering back at her.
The Knightmare began to mutate into something, unholy; slowly, he stirred as he began to rise and extended a pair of enormous leathery wings. Grozette tried to rush away from him but found herself snared and collected up in his grasp.
Quickly and without fear or Quiddit. Joro threaded a filament of webbing through the eye at the end of her sword and hurled it like a curious harpoon and somehow wrangled his ankle as the creature began to ascend with Grozette. She angled the great winged demon and Grozette back to the ground. She Didn’t appear to have any more strength than an ordinary woman. But understood the lure that she was holding, the intricacies of when to give, when to go and when to give it a mighty tug. Bringing everything crashing into the Earth with a thump.
There they lay stunned as Grozette moved first and grabbed Ivry one last time, hefting the sword away with all her might. She hurried once again away from him.
They braced themselves as the enigma stood half man half winged demon in black armour his face clouded and his scarlet eyes that were shrilling. “Let’s be reasonable, about this,” he said in an almost human voice.
“return to me what’s mine, and I’ll leave you alone,”
“How can we trust you, a deceiver!” Said Grozette in airs of denunciation.
“That’s mightily rich coming from a turncoat like you, but then, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree,” he said turning his gaze and scorn toward Tal before continuing “it was You that reneged on the pact, we made,” he told re-focusing his vision upon the grey Witch
Grozette looked decidedly ruffled as for the first time since Elkie had known her she seemed speechless. In a weak voice, she murmured “something’s come at a too higher price,” as her eyes twitched and looked decidedly black and hollow and about to weep…
The enmity slowly spoke, he was, mesmerising and hypnotic..
“We all paid for it… All three of us, but then you developed a conscious,” he said sarcastically gaslighting her.
“Trying to con the people like your acting for some selfless, righteous cause to the further benefit of them, when we both know you’re doing it for yourself, …. you have chosen for them,”
The space between them fell silent, and there was an eeriness about it as if the truth had been told, and it wasn’t pleasant. “that’s not how I remember it, I remember you forcing us to do what we detested until I despised what I had become. And poor Tallulah you damaged her mind until just her soul it haunted the air, my kind sister,” she said as she passed her a cursory glance. Her eyes were brimming full of tears of shame and guilt.
“only Leer can judge me now and believe you me; I’m ready to pay for the sins that I have done,”
She chose her words carefully and composed them expertly.
“the thing with absolute power is, it has the best of intentions to put the world to rights, but over time it erodes your very soul and any hope of redemption,”
“look at you; you’re the monster now, you know, and I know, that you ain’t got that long to last,” she bowed her head a little and looked up to the stars above and whispered just above her breath “I’m ready now to accept my fate.”
Grozettes words seem to strike him at his core as he let out a tormented, anguished scream that almost sounded human. The ground shook as blackness began to bellow out of him like a kettle and encroach towards them a black pyroclastic cloud. Grozette gathered up Elkies hand and said “everyone to the temple… QUICKLY!”
As they fled for their lives and souls towards the sanctuary.
The floor shook as they filtered towards the small side entrance. Elkie and Tal entered the temple first followed by Grozette, “Jn Joro, where is she, commanded Tal?”
“she’s still out there!” answered Li Elkie. Beaming out on the bleak negative space, they could barely see Joro she was lying on the floor astride one of her legs was caught in the dark gaseous vortex of darkness as she looked back at them in horror. Elkie looked on in anguish with notions of Deja vu that began to wash over her. They saw her fight against the veil of darkness as it seemed to whisper in many voices it had caught her in a different type of web. Plainly they saw the strain on her face as she screwed it up. She looked like she had braced it against something that had a hold of it in a vice-like grip. As she gave a final mighty tug and ripped herself at the very skin as she revealed her true naked spiderself.
She cast her skin off. Uncovered, unvarnished an item of clothing that she pulled herself away from. She yelped in pain, detaching one of her hind legs. as she limped under a cloud of tiny hairs that she shot into the bleak emptiness and scurried toward sanctuary as fast as she could. As they closed the door and hoped it would be enough to fend him off. The three remaining of them braced the door with their weight, as Grozette looked at her feet and saw a black gaseous mist slowly seeping beneath the breach. “you are not coming in here,” said Tallulah determined as the fog hung at the doorway but came no further.
They breathed a sigh of relief, a momentary reprieve as they heard the sound of glass cracking breaking shatter-ing as a voice spoke enchantments in deep earthy tones. As one by one, the tall stained-glass windows from the rear to the front of the atrium shattered and poured down upon them like hailstones. Leaving broken glass on the ground piled up like slush. Also, the small round compact mirror that was enchanted by Grozette’s curse suddenly was eeked out from beneath Tallulahs doublet by unseen hands. It lay open and cracked as she felt her visage shatter and saw the monster she indeed was once more glaring back at her, in the many shards scattered on the floor like a mosaic of broken-heartedness and broken glass. As Grozette and Li Elkie, we’re unable to hold the door and gave up, and everything was covered in the pitch black.